This hero made my girl parts quiver. The heroine was perfectly drawn.

The tattoo? Made me drool.

Nobody has mentioned Jane’s mother’s parenting skills. I found her explanation of the serial fathers to be interesting. It demonstrated that within her limited means, and in the light of her own experience, she was trying really hard to provide Jane with a safe home.

I think the ability to present serious matters within this genre is very clever – look how much discussion this book, which appears light and fluffly on first appearance, has led to. I’m already looking forward to her next book and I only finished this one an hour ago (I really must do some work now).

Thanks Victoria.

Rachel

I cried when: Quinn (her boss) expressed how he felt about Jane and wrapped his arms around her. “Panic exploded through her. Not because she thought he meant something inappropriate, but because he didn’t. He honestly respected her. He loved the women she pretended to be, and that made something deep inside her ache”. My heart broke for her. Jane was a complicated heroine but I loved all her messy emotions and layers. I also loved how Chase accepted her and respected her, but respected himself enough to set limits with her.

I’m enjoying the book, it’s funny , it’s engaging, the romance is hot and oh yeah, “Grandma Olive” followed me around on my wedding day telling me I better have condoms or I’d be knocked up by sunrise. 200 times she said this. In hearing of the minister, and everyone else in attendance LOL.

“Get your tits off him, you heifer!”

Interesting that others loved this line, since it is very nearly a deal breaker for me. I really dislike that type of verbal bitch-slapping for whatever reason, particularly when it is meant to show the heroine getting feisty. Which is too bad, since I liked Victoria Dahl’s historical romances and the plot and characters (particularly Jane) in LMO sound interesting–vaguely reminiscent of Megan Hart’s Dirty.

But lord save us from suspense storylines messing up a good romance! It’s all about the internal conflict.

IMO it’s entirely possible that Mac knew exactly what Jane was doing. But just look at his fatherly example to his now-adult children. How involved and engaged is he? He’s pissed at Jessie and won’t speak to him or bail him out of jail; he seems to spend most of his time in his shop or office; he doesn’t approach Jane – she approaches him.

And not that good parents can’t have screwed up kids, but BOTH those kids have big problems. Does Jessie seem like he had a strong fatherly influence on him? Not to me.

Not everyone knows how to be an effective parent, even those who love their children/step children. Outside of that one time when Mac picks Jane up at the police station, I don’t think we have any evidence in the novel of him being an engaged or proactive parent. How long has Jessie been running around stealing purses? It’s not like Mac’s picking him up at the bar.

I think it’s very clear Mac loves both Jane and Jessie, but I think the novel presents him as a relatively remote parent/step-parent.

Regarding the pregnancies and diseases it’s more than possible to catch something when you sleep around for four years with the guys Jane did. I don’t say it’s a must to get pregnant or a disease, I just wished that there was a comment about it in the book.

I really wanted to like the book because I enjoyed the other two in the series a lot but I just can’t get over what’s bothering me.

RE: the disease/pregnancy thing – I got the sense that Jane realized just how lucky she was. “There, but for the grace of God, go I,” as my mother has frequently said to me.

Also, I got the impression that people only kept Mac informed later on, NOT while Jane was running wild. Even he admits at one point that he let her running around go on too long, and I think that’s also key.

I rarely judge a book’s authenticity by the example of my own life, but as a child of upper middle class, corporate, “normal” parents, in a family that appeared from the outside to be happy and well-adjusted, I could still relate to Jane. I ran wild starting at age 16, and I don’t know whether my parents didn’t notice or willfully ignored it, but neither intervened or gave any indication they knew what was going on. Now if the cops ever had me in custody and called my parents, things likely would have changed drastically. But fortunately or unfortunately, that never happened to me. ;)

Oh, and another ditto on the “not necessarily” for disease and pregnancy thing.

I loved the earlier books of this series and have ordered this one. Ms. Dahl is an auto-buy for me now.

There also would have been unwanted pregnancies and diseases after four years of sleeping around and I don't like that this point was never really mentioned.

Why is this a foregone conclusion? Plenty of us were more than a tad “slutty” (and I honestly don't mean this in a derogatory way, since I'm talking about myself and I wouldn't change a thing) in our younger years and managed to avoid both.